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Remote work means anyone can take your job

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Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#81

Post by rb808 »

davedx wrote: post #7

Seems like this article ignores the gigantic wave of out-sourcing throughout IT that already happened in previous decades and in many cases returned to near-shore / onsite work. What you actually see if you look at remote work job boards is many (if not most) companies in say, the USA, want remote people from the USA (or at least the same timezone as the USA). I think this is what will happen in other countries too.

> in many cases returned to near-shore / onsite work

Do you have any examples? I dont see this at all.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#82

Post by joelbluminator »

beager wrote: post #19

The implication from this litter of thinkpieces on HN is that proximity to a tech hub (SV/NY) is your only competitive advantage as a knowledge worker—your butt is close to their chair. This runs counter to the other prevailing wisdom about SV/NY, which is that those areas are hubs—and essential to the tech industry—because the world's top talent is drawn to it. So which is it?

So you think every node.js / rails developer that happens to live in SV and work in a startup is the next Linus? Of course they're lots of ordinary developers working and living there. And yes, being born American / European is a huge advantage over 80% of the rest of humanity.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#83

Post by rb808 »

Communitivity wrote: post #38

True, but... Anyone can already take your job, as long as they are willing to relocate, or your company opens a new office near them. It is more important than ever to differentiate yourself. To do that you need to find something to do that you love, and then find (or more often make) a niche in that that that you become one of the top ten people in within your context. By context I mean you don't need to be the best…

> Anyone can already take your job, as long as they are willing to relocate,

This where immigration restrictions make a difference. A Brazilian developer has trouble working in SV, but no trouble working remote.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#84

Post by phkahler »

gamblor956 wrote: post #71
hopia wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've made the same observation. Does it have something to do with US tax or other regulations?

Yes, recent changes in the tax code made it less enticing for US companies to offshore US jobs. The company can potentially end up losing a lot of (otherwise legitimately acquired) tax benefits. With respect to R&D, for example, the US no longer allows foreign R&D activities to qualify for the R&D tax credit.

>> With respect to R&D, for example, the US no longer allows foreign R&D activities to qualify for the R&D tax credit.

From what I've seen, many companies will shoehorn regular product development into the R&D category. I'm not sure if it's supposed to cover next iteration of existing products that most company should be doing anyway.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#85

Post by ianwalter »

vcanales wrote: post #40
davedx wrote: post #7

Seems like this article ignores the gigantic wave of out-sourcing throughout IT that already happened in previous decades and in many cases returned to near-shore / onsite work. What you actually see if you look at remote work job boards is many (if not most) companies in say, the USA, want remote people from the USA (or at least the same timezone as the USA). I think this is what will happen in other countries too.

In my totally unscientific assessment of remote job boards, US companies seem to be the only ones requesting US-only applicants, and I have no insight as to why this happens. In my -South American- country the trend is to look outwards if you're hiring remotely; European countries seem to fit this description too.

From what I've seen, European countries often require applicants to be in European time zones.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#86

Post by cameronbrown »

roosterdawn wrote: post #65
cameronbrown wrote: post #11

There's some serious irony that traditionally globalist brogrammer types are now whining about outsourcing (to "poorer" areas, or other countries). You guys didn't care when it was happened to blue collar workers, and then go and rag on Trump voters who didn't see any other way out. Then there's the other faction that doesn't understand basic economics and expects Bay Area pay from Bangladesh so they can live like a…

> Edit: Wow. Downvote in five seconds. Really makes you think how much effort people are putting into processing the words I wrote. What is there to process besides you making a strawman and injecting flat politically polarized tropes and adding nothing but pollution to a discussion? You are arguing in bad faith with shoddy arguments and should be downvoted: - False equivalence between blue collar and white collar ou…

You're right. I wrote this post in anger and frustration because I don't like how things are heading. Let me try and clear things up.

> - False equivalence between blue collar and white collar outsourcing -- what makes you think knowledge work isn't substantially different from blue collar work for them to be apples and oranges?

I'm not suggesting that blue collar and white collar work is similar, but that, at the end of the day, these are livelihoods we're talking about. Remote work will eventually lead to outsourcing (if it is possible).

Plenty of workers are saying, "give us WFH - it works" and if this is true, I can't see why those jobs wouldn't get shipped off ASAP. Every job outsourced is a damn shame, but as far as the media is telling me, I'm now supposed to start feeling sorry for white collar but not blue collar outsourcing? This is blatant bias.

> Putting words in someone else's mouth -- no one here ragged on Trump voters who "didn't see any other way out" -- you perceived that and projected it into a space inappropriately. This is a giant forum with a variety of people and political opinions. Don't flatten that into a single viewpoint and expect to not get heat for it.

Not on this forum, no, but go pick up any newspaper and you'll see plenty of evidence of this. I would go as far as to say, the primary reason Trump was elected was due to his strong anti-China/anti-outsourcing stance. That makes this whole situation political.

> - Misunderstanding of labor pricing. Employers pay the minimum they can, but saying "salaries are high right now because of concentration of talent" misses the network effect of concentration of talent. If you don't understand the nonlinear effect of that, I think it is a little bit misguided to suggest that others do not understand "basic economics".

I do understand this, but remote working to begin with, is predicated on the axiom that being in the same, shared physical space, isn't essential. If that's true, why would companies continue to overpay (from their PoV) workers in these tech hubs (at least long term)

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#87

Post by joelbluminator »

tluyben2 wrote: post #64

As someone who basically never worked in an office since I began working as a dev in the early 90s; you have to protect yourself and carve out niches and knowledge that takes actual time and elbow grease to catch up to. Sure many people anywhere in the world can do what I do, but with the deep knowledge I have about some subjects (banking/payments/insurances backends & production firmware), it is not very likely to g…

try to find cheap react/node devs in the U.S, good luck with that. The cost of skills doesn't always translate to how hard it is to acquire it. I mean, some medical nurses study for 5-10 years and specialise and specialise only to earn 1/2 what a react dev earns in the U.S

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#88

Post by conanbatt »

adventured wrote: post #69
vcanales wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my totally unscientific assessment of remote job boards, US companies seem to be the only ones requesting US-only applicants, and I have no insight as to why this happens. In my -South American- country the trend is to look outwards if you're hiring remotely; European countries seem to fit this description too.

The US has 330m people, you generally (emphasis, as there are certainly exceptions) don't need to look beyond its labor base to find what you're looking for. If you're in Estonia and looking to hire a software engineer for remote work, maybe you end up hiring someone from Poland or Spain. That's still EU hiring in the EU, more akin to what you're referring to with the US. On average the smaller the country, it probab…

Its about finding it cheapest, not about finding it. The argument you are making can be said for doing imports of any kind as well.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#89

Post by dh5 »

Communitivity wrote: post #38

True, but... Anyone can already take your job, as long as they are willing to relocate, or your company opens a new office near them. It is more important than ever to differentiate yourself. To do that you need to find something to do that you love, and then find (or more often make) a niche in that that that you become one of the top ten people in within your context. By context I mean you don't need to be the best…

Relocation is a big barrier to those already married, and even more if they have kids. That's a large portion of senior guys.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#90

Post by joelbluminator »

quxpar wrote: post #63

Pre-remote, I was afraid of a random person walking in off the street and doing my job. I don't think I ever worked for a successful company that wasn't continually hiring people in my role. I don't think the author realizes that large businesses that rely on software see tech as a team sport, in which camaraderie plays a huge role. Subconsciously, they're willing to pay another $40k for a better social/emotional exp…

I'd take B over you anytime buddy. You sound like you're 19, not that there's anything wrong with being 19. But your preference isn't everyone's preference.
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